


A Second Eden

by purplekitte



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Missing Scene, Roboute bought the farm, Sibling Incest, Unremembered Empire, but not by much, is a better label I think, is another way to put it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“For an irrational moment, Roboute Guilliman willed Dantioch to fail in his efforts to re-tune the Pharos, and wished never to return. A part of him knew that he could live out his days on Sotha in utter contentment, barebacked and tanned in the sunlight, careless, mowing the grasses with his scythe, season in and season out.”--<i>Unremembered Empire</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Second Eden

Guilliman was taking the news they were stuck on Sotha indefinitely too well, better than the Lion was more to the point. It could easily take them a year to get back to Macragge considering the length of the journey the ships dispatched to get them would have to take through the Warpstorm both ways.

Unless the Warsmith could get them back sooner, but he’d proved annoyingly unable to reverse engineer what he had done so far. The Lion had tried to help, which eventually prompted Guilliman ‘having a word with him’ that he was annoying Dantioch and Polux to distraction and while no one could give him orders they had requested that he request for his brother to leave them alone. Dantioch pointed out that while the primarch was very intelligent, he was absolutely horrible about understanding the specific mechanics underlying the Pharos, even as well as the Iron Warrior and Imperial Fist could. The Lion had since taken to exploring all the nooks and crannies of the mysterious xenos structure in case he was able to discover some secret yet uncovered in the walls.

Guilliman was not merely being unhelpful, but possibly being part of the problem, from what the Lion had gleaned from Scout Oberdeii. He was getting drawn in by the dreams the device offered and losing sight of reality. It was offering him something he wanted and he wasn’t resisting enough. Someone needed to slap him out of it and remind him his pastoral fantasies weren’t real. He was a primarch and they were in the middle of not merely a Crusade but a rebellion. Lorgar. They might have ended the immediate threat of Curze by tossing him into some forsaken part of the galaxy--hopefully the centre of a star, though the Lion doubted they would be so lucky--but someone really needed to be reminding Guilliman of his continuing desire to kill Lorgar with his bare hands every couple hours.

To the Lion’s annoyance, the shadows were too long when he emerged from the depths today, meaning Guilliman had long since finished his morning audience with his proxies and princes on Macragge, the one admission of responsibilities he hadn’t shucked off. That meant the Lion could either wait for him to return for the night or go out and look for him.

Finding him both proved the Lion’s point and made him wish he’d waited so he could at least pretend Guilliman wasn’t cracking under the strain.

He was striking certainly, like a god of autumn in many a heathen fane, but no work of art could compete with the reality of a primarch. He had found a scythe, but it was no Manreaper of Mortarion’s, more a sickle in his hand. His hair caught orange highlights from the afternoon sun, slowly growing out shaggy from the short crop he had always worn it in. His skin gleamed with light as well, though he couldn’t possible have worked up a sweat. He had never been as pale as Curze or Corax, but he showed a noticeable tan from his melanchromic functions activating after refusing to wear a shirt at all for the past week.

Guilliman was moving methodically down the rows of grasses, but even so there was something off about his movements. His force was usually measured, carefully considered, using just as much as was necessary for victory without wasting resources that were more needed elsewhere. He had some allowance for initiative, more than his detractors claimed or some of his sons showed, but for him this was just sloppy. Admittedly the plants were hardly about to fight back, but these were the kind of slow, fluid, wide swings people took when they weren’t trying, when they were ‘just doing it for fun’, they said.

‘You are a disgrace of a primarch. I need the Lord of Ultramar, not an agri-worker.’

‘My dear brother, neither your pacing nor my indulgent vacation will get us back to Macragge one minute sooner or later.’ Guilliman tied the last bushel of grain and dropped it on a stack carefully separate from those of weeds only good for goat-feed and burning for winter heat. Then, to the Lion’s intense annoyance, he sprawled on his back in utter careless contentment. It wasn’t even a gesture Fulgrim would have made, too undignified rather than sensual, too spontaneous rather than scripted.

‘We could be planning.’

‘The situation is changing too rapidly for long-term plans to be reasonable as more than contingencies. Even I know that. You’re fretting.’

‘I am sorry I haven’t been enchanted by empathetic magic like the rest of you and still feel some urgency.’

‘The sons you left are fine. You can talk to them as often as you please.’

With everyone watching over his shoulder, especially the Warsmith. Then there was Caliban. No, Terra. The concern was Terra.

‘My dear Roboute, you are driving me to homicide.’

He laughed, damn him, for all that the Lion _had_ been joking. His laughter had been so easy and carefree, and he had no time to breathe before the Lion tackled him, throwing up chunks of turf as they skidded with the force of it. The Lion pinned him down and punched the ground beside Guilliman’s head in frustration, unable to take the trust in his clear blue eyes. He didn’t flinch at all, the bastard.

Guilliman waited a moment for the Lion to pull his humours back under control before reached up and putting an arm over his shoulder and pressing him down until there was no space between them. The Lion could have fought it, his leverage was vastly superior, but he waited to see what his brother had in mind. Guilliman patted his back and head rhythmically and massaged at his stubbornly knotted shoulders.

‘Would it break you to relax?’

‘Maybe.’ He wasn’t sure how much of his identity would be left if he unwound all the outer layers like his brother had. There was too much to do. Matters of empire. They were not for this. The Lion was not one who got distracted by fond dreams of after the Great Crusade, especially not now. He might be carving out a brittle foundation to stand on, but it was important to him that he not give in to this place or its magic.

Guilliman embraced him outright, wrapping both arms around him and taking all his weight on himself. The strength hadn’t left his limbs and he wasn’t passive against him, but he exuded patience, his pride tied to the harvest, distracted by the movement of the clouds across the sky, utterly at peace with himself. The Lion sighed. ‘You’re so aggravating.’

Guilliman kissed him first, but the Lion responded and pressed back harder. He moved above him and pushed him down with more force than was strictly necessary. His bare skin was baked warm from the sun, the fine hairs on his arms bleached white-blond. He smelled of freshly cut grass, green and sharp with leaf aldehydes.

The Lion pushed his legs apart with his knees and worked down the grass-strained trousers and loincloth that were his only clothing, while Guilliman unlaced his brother’s trousers in turn.

Guilliman grunted in pain as the Lion pushed all the way inside him in a single stroke without bothering with foreplay or preparation, but he was a primarch. He moved with the Lion’s thrusts and relaxed easily, not surprising given his boneless sprawl.

It was... not conquest and surrender, however easy it would be to frame it like that and how the Lion’s pride would have preferred it. Guilliman was willing and pliant under him, meeting the Lion’s aggression with only eagerness of his own, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling his brother was still the one in charge here. Even playing at normality and obscurity, he couldn’t help but be every inch the confident lord in his own domain. It was easy enough for him to answer a petitioner’s needs, only a pittance to him with his vast strength and holdings, and humour his brother-primarchs that they could be equals or anyone else could hold the reins in his own sworn lands.

The Lion’s hands found the scars from his near-death a few weeks ago, not slowing him anymore but still obviously fresh and different from the injuries of past wars. Guilliman ran fingers over his neck and shoulders to trace the recent scars there, as gentle and methodical as his medical care had been in the first few days when he had needed such things.

The Lion thrust into him hard and fast, wanting to break him open, but Guilliman only smiled and wrapped his legs around his waist, all solid strength in potentia but not turning it against him. There was only how good he felt, the heat of his skin and the clench around his cock, his unrestrained moans while the Lion barely let his breathing change audibly.

The friction was too good as he drove into him a few last times, and the Lion’s orgasm hit his whole body with all the force of a rockslide. With a few strokes of his cock, Guilliman came in his hand with a satisfied sigh.

The Lion didn’t want to see him like that, sprawled debauched and indolent and somehow beautiful in his happiness and pastoral simplicity, and retreated--not ran--as soon as he’d straightened his clothes. He didn’t need to see Guilliman wash off in a nearby stream and return to the Pharos with his harvest with water still dripping down his chest. He didn’t need to see everyone’s knowing smirk at the bite marks on his shoulder not totally faded yet or the impressions of the Lion’s fingers bruised into his hips just above his waistline.

Later, for reasons he didn’t want to examine, the Lion would slip onto the straw mattress a local woman had braided Guilliman, made not merely large enough for a primarch but for two. As if Polux’s assigned quarters had been in use practically since they’d gotten here, he told himself. Guilliman would roll over onto him or pull him close and wrap himself around him and stay that way, as diurnal as a native though he didn’t need that much sleep.

The Lion would awake later from dreams he couldn’t remember and his brother’s warmth and closeness would be stifling. He’d extract himself from the embrace and descend to the cool depths of the monument to search for something he couldn’t find. Eventually, another day would dawn exactly like the one before, day after day as long as this dream lasted.


End file.
